Aveda Institute Chicago

I had a positive experience here about a year ago and have subsequently tried to book again. The booking system changed in the interim between the first visit and the subsequent booking attempts. So the next three appointments I've made over a 6-month period have all been cancelled. For each of the first two appointments, I received a cancellation notification the day of the appointment, alerting me that the student-stylist was no longer available. This week, I received a confirmation text for a 6:30pm appointment that I'd made for today. I confirmed it. Then I received another text and email asking me to confirm my 4:30pm appointment for today. I never made a 4:30pm appointment. It took me 15 minutes to get someone on the phone yesterday to find out that the student stylist for the 6:30pm appointment was no longer available. So they changed the appointment time and "were planning to call me to let me know." I cancelled the appointment and won't be attempting to book here again. Why would they assume that they could rebook my appointment for another time without first checking my availability? The cancellation notices I received for the first 2 appointments came with an offer to discount my next visit. If the intent was to avoid offering a discount on this 3rd cancellation by putting me in the position of cancelling the appointment, know that the discount really doesn't matter. The services are already reasonably priced. JUST HONOR CLIENTS' APPOINTMENTS. Moving the appointment time without letting me know was confusing and unprofessional. I also understand that things happen, staff gets sick, needs to tend to family matters, etc. But cancelling 3 appointments across six months combined with a number of other reviewers here who have had the same experience, there is clearly an issue here that is not being properly addressed. This is unfair to clients, but also to the Aveda students who will eventually enter the world of professional salons where they'll never build a book of business with unstable scheduling practices. Moreover, this is damaging to the Aveda brand. This experience has taught me that going to an experienced salon professional is money well spent.

I don't understand why there are bad reviews and what people expected from students, and when they sign documents, do they read what is written there? You pay a very small price for the service and then get upset. I've been coming here twice already and everything has always been done very well, thank you Alexandra

I waited to write this review because the stylist is a student and I do understand they’re in training. But I still can’t get my hair back to its normal texture and shine. It’s basically been messed up since it was done at Aveda. All I can say is these are the WORST "highlights" and "layers" I’ve ever gotten. I guess it should have been a red flag when the Aveda stylist was bleaching my hair and another stylist came up and told her she can’t let the bleach partially dry, because it’ll stop developing- and my stylist totally ignored her and said it was fine. Another red flag was when the stylist was drying my hair and looked at me and said "I can’t tell if your hairs wet or dry. Is it dry?". I’m sorry, but what stylist doesn’t know if hair is dry? Then when the teacher came to check my hair, (after she was done running around burning Sage) she told the student it looked great. Luckily for upwards of $300 my regular stylist + another stylist from her salon were able to do MAJOR repairs on my hair that week. It took 2 people 5 hours to even attempt to fix her mistake. They added lowlight, highlights and shadow roots to fix what the Aveda student did. Not to mention they cut off about 5 inches to get rid of my choppy layers. First photo is the cut from Aveda. Following photos are the color from Aveda.

I know it’s a cheap haircut but the girl who did my hair cut off like two snips of my hair and said she was done. And then she asked if she could blow dry it and I was like can you use heat protection on it and she said I did but really all she did was put literally one spray pump of leaving conditioner on one side of my hair. When she washed my hair she washed like half of it. You gotta laugh it off definitely was a pointless haircut

The experience was awful from the minute that I sat down in the chair to when I left the building. I visited the Aveda Institute yesterday (my appointment was 9am) for a color. There was a miscommunication about the type of appointment and Shelby was kind enough to clear out her morning schedule for my appointment. She started with lightening my hair-however the instructor I believe his name was Randall, insisted that she would have to take my hair to a 10 in order to get the bubble gum pink that I wanted. They went back-and-forth for a few minutes. Everything seemed very rushed and like the instructor didn’t really care about the students. He also kept telling me that the ends of my hair have been dyed. False. The last time I had my hair dyed was in 2021 and all of that color has been chopped off. Luckily, she didn’t listen to him and I’m thankful. However. Shelby is graduating next month and I don’t think she’s ready despite having completed 1200 hours. She was completely out of her element. When she took my hair blonde, it turned out pretty brassy and another student had to tell her what products to use for the shampoo/conditioner. I’m going to buy some toning shampoo/conditioner to try and fix it. She was hesitant on how to mix the colors for the Bubblegum Pink and the student next to her, Alex, went ahead and did it for her. Since she didn’t know what she was doing there’s a few spots that were missing color. She also completely forgot to color my roots! After rinsing, we both noticed the orange and she let me know that I could come back next week for a color correction (which is on Wednesday). She somewhat blow dried my hair, not fully because when I left, the back of my head wet. She didn’t even offer to show me what the back of my head looked like and I forgot to ask because I was very disappointed in the way that this turned out. I will update this review with the color correction experience, but right now I would tell everyone to stay away. Unfortunately the results were lack luster (especially for $139) and I can say that I will never be visiting the Aveda Institute again.

I have been going here for 12 years and in the last year my appointments were cancelled so many times, sometimes at the point of arrival, that I have had to stop going. I have just heard from a friend who has also been using it for several years that the same thing has now started happening to her and she will now no longer be going. Whilst it is understandable that, at times, unforseen things happen that affect staffing, for this to happen with every single appointment, including rescheduled ones from prior cancellations, it is not acceptable. There should be greater accountability on the salon's end to ensure those customers who have been cancelled on are prioritised which is also not the case. I have recommended this salon every year for over a decade to the new staff at my work who arrive new to the city and I will not be doing that again. The service has become overwhelmingly unreliable and unapologetically so. I'm disappointed in the decline I have seen here, particularly since it was taken over by the Intitute of Beauty and Wellness which is when all of the recurring cancellations began.

Teresa R. did an awesome job on my highlights today! She was very attentive to detail and chose a great tone for my hair. All at a great price. The only knock I have is that the service took much longer than a typical salon - but this is understood since it is a school.